It's 20 years since Peter Howitt bid farewell to his recurring role as Joey, the eldest of the Boswell children in Carla Lane's fondly remembered sitcom, Bread. In the decade that followed, his appearances were confined to one-off TV dramas or serials like Kiss And Tell, Civvies and Killing Me Softly.

Then, in 1998, he made his directorial bow with Sliding Doors, since when, other than uncredited cameos in his own films, he's been on the other side of the camera, directing conspiracy thriller Antitrust, Rowan Atkinson spy-spoof Johnny English and Pierce Brosnan romcom Laws Of Attraction. Until now, that is.

Born in Manchester but now living in Vancouver with his wife, teenage son and newborn daughter, Howitt's screen return is also his big screen starring debut, playing Noah Atkinson, the self-destructive, alcoholic, bladder cancer afflicted filmmaker from Stuart Browne's posthumously published acclaimed semi-autobiographical novel, Dangerous Parking.

But he's not just in the film, he also wrote and directed it. Uncompromisingly dark, veined with gallows humour and, as he himself admits, at times extremely hard to watch, it's not what you might expect from someone with Howitt's filmography. Which, of course, is precisely why he wanted to do it.

"I'd hit a junction in my life," he explains. "I looked back at what I'd made since Sliding Doors and, while they were all fine in their own way they said nothing about me; Laws Of Attraction wasn't the sort of film I'd personally go and watch. I felt it was time to put myself on the line again and ask some tough questions."

Having been given Browne's book to read by producer Richard Johns, Howitt felt this was "roll your sleeves up" stuff. He began writing to shake himself up a bit and found he couldn't stop, ending up with an entire screenplay. Having written it, he knew he had to direct too.

However, given the subject matter and his singular vision, financing predictably proved im-possible. Instead, friends and family all chipped in enough to pay for basic day-to-day production costs and everyone else, cast, crew, gave their services in return for shares in the film. It was, he confesses, a humbling act of faith.

"Incredibly so. The first week was very scary and I remember driving to work on the following Monday and thinking 'what if no one shows up?' But I arrived and all the trailers and trucks were there. The crew all showed up and I was so thrilled they came back and kept coming back and stuck with it."

Dangerous Parking is, he says, closer to where he is as a person and his sense of humour than anything he's made since Sliding Doors. So what, you have to ask, were the connections he made to Browne and a character with whom it's almost impossible to sympathise.

"The book really makes you feel what it must be like to have to stop drinking when you don't want to," he says. "I stopped 10 years ago, but that was because I didn't want to drink anymore. I'm lucky, but there's those for whom every day is a struggle because they don't want to stop, and that's bloody hard.

"I liked the unapologetic abrasive nature of this man showing you what it's like to be in the throes of an alcoholic addiction; this hedonistic, self-indulgent petulant maniac who has to right a very badly driven ship and get it off the rocks and back to shore.

"Noah's not an attractive character to start with, but he'd be the first to point a finger. He's out of control, he won't listen to reason and he's insecure. The first thing he says is 'my name is Noah Arkwright and I want my mom'. We're all little boys and girls at heart. There are no excuses for how he is, but there are reasons."

To play such a demanding character on top of directing seems positively masochistic, but, as Howitt reveals, he'd never actually intended to be in the film.

Howitt recalls thinking that he hoped whoever wound up being cast would play the character they way he would have done. He won't say who eventually landed the role but whoever it was dropped out just before the cameras were about to roll and Howitt became Noah by default.

"I didn't have the time to think about and if I had I would have talked myself out of it." he admits. " But, having lived with him for so long, I knew the character as well as anyone and my wife said he was so me with the naughtiness, the anarchy, the disparaging put-downs and self-deprecation.

"But even so it was an emotionally testing couple of weeks deciding if it was a good idea to play him or not. Once I had, everyone rallied round me and gave immense support."

Ironically, not having acted for several years,proved a bonus in getting to the truth, both of Noah and, whether you love it or hate it, the whole arc of the film.

"I'm not an actor any more and I have no wish to be, so I had no acting ego or vanity and I didn't care how I looked or came across," he declares. "I just wanted to be my version of this bloke, and that was really quite freeing. I put myself in the deep end and it was tough, but I think it was meant to be. I'm glad I did it and I think I played Noah as honestly as any of the other actors would have done.

"It's a dark, testing film but it's also uplifting and romantic. It's not for everyone, but those it is for get a lot from it. I'm very proud of the finished product, and I've never said that about anything I've ever made before."